


these things inevitable

by redluxite (wordstruck)



Series: VLD One-Shots [28]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Non-S8 Compliant, Weddings, fewfe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 15:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17531333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/redluxite
Summary: Shiro turns off the stove, divides the eggs into two plates already loaded with toast. He carries them over to where Keith’s sitting; Keith shifts things to make room. The plates clink onto the countertop. Keith takes a sip of his coffee, checks something on his data pad. He looks up.Shiro’s looking at him, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, like love.





	these things inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Was digging through an old blog and found a short 00Q fic I'd written once upon a time, so I turned it Sheith, because fluff and because happiness. Because these two deserved a quiet epilogue to a love story.
> 
> I wrote and posted their wedding vows to Twitter a while back, so I'm including them here now.

* * *

 

 

One of Keith’s earliest memories is of himself, in the shack, with his father. He’s climbing onto his father’s lap, firefighter’s helmet too big on his head. Heath laughs and sits back, making room for his son to settle on his thighs and look up at him with big, inquisitive eyes.

Keith remembers asking, then, how his father and mother had met. How it had all begun, the story of them and then him, too.

 _How it begins_ ; it’s a sentimental notion. He doesn’t even remember his father’s answer.

There isn’t really a beginning to Keith’s and Shiro’s story, not really. Matt teases him all the time that it started when Shiro had stuck up for Keith at the Garrison after Keith had punched a guy in the face. Keith just huffs a laugh and shakes his head and doesn’t say, _what about before that._ What about the afternoon that Shiro had bailed a problem kid out of juvie after having his car stolen. Or the dream that had brought Shiro to the Garrison, or the well-worn books that had made Keith love the stars, even back then.

Shiro is, and Keith is, and they are. Beginnings are not things they dwell on; endings are simply inevitable.

Still, sometimes Keith does wonder when _this,_ them, had all started. It’s early in the morning, and they’re both in the kitchen. Keith sits at the counter, coffee in his hands and legs kicking idly at his stool, waiting for Shiro to finish making breakfast. It’s simple – the man still isn’t too confident in the kitchen – but Keith appreciates that he tries. The broadcast screen is on but the volume is turned low. Keith wears one of Shiro’s shirts, ostensibly borrowed and then never returned; Shiro is in sweatpants, the broad planes of his chest and back in full view.. He’s singing quietly under his breath, an old song, from a time back and back and back.

 _I wanna hurry home to you,_  
_put on a slow, dumb show for you,_  
 _and crack you up._

Shiro turns off the stove, divides the eggs into two plates already loaded with toast. He carries them over to where Keith’s sitting; Keith shifts things to make room. The plates clink onto the countertop. Keith takes a sip of his coffee, checks something on his data pad. He looks up.

Shiro’s looking at him, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, like love.

The look holds, one second, two, five. There’s a faint murmur of noise from the broadcast. Neither of them look away. It’s 8am on a Tuesday.

“Marry me.”

It’s said in the same tone with which Shiro says he loves Keith, or welcomes him home. Soft and firm and completely sure; steady as Shiro is in all things. Shiro looks at Keith across the counter and really, the whole situation should be ridiculous, but Keith’s forgotten how to breathe.

“Marry me.”

 

_(I’m not – the best at big speeches or big declarations. You know this, you do, because you know everything about me. For the longest time, Shiro, you were the only one to really see me, and that—_

_I can’t tell you how much it meant, to have you be there and then keep being there. To have you at all. To have you still._

_Takashi, you are everything to me. There isn’t a what-if, there isn’t a different way this goes. There isn’t a universe out there where we don’t find each other, where I don’t love you. I am yours, as you are mine, until all our stars have fallen. And I will die for you, and with you, and by you._

_I don’t know when I started loving you. I just know I won’t stop. Not for a hundred different lifetimes. You are my fixed point in the universe, Takashi Shirogane. And I will always call you home.)_

 

 

The paladins are only around because the law still apparently requires two witnesses, and they couldn’t only choose two of their friends to attend. Everyone gets their fair share of teasing in, but on the whole, they’re all happy for the two idiots finally getting with the program (Hunk’s words; Lance’s and Pidge’s were plenty more… colorful). Krolia comes, too, and for that Keith is immensely thankful. Somehow or other, given Shiro’s status as Admiral and Krolia’s as the co-leader of the Blades, they wrangle a weekend where all of them are off-duty, barring a sudden alien attack. The shack out in the desert is long gone, but Shiro still remembers a long-ago promise.

(He still remembers: Keith beside him on the Garrison roof, looking out at the stars. Quietly admitting he’d never seen the ocean, that the red rock and dust of the desert were all he’d known his whole life. Shiro saying, then, _when I get back from Kerberos, I’ll take you to the ocean._ )

It’s a bit of a trip, but seeing Keith’s face as he stares out at the endless blue, waves washing over his bare feet, sunshine on his hair – it’s worth it.

Matt serves as minister, producing some inexplicable license at Shiro’s protests. Keith shrugs and just says he’s not surprised.

In the end, everything’s perfect.

 

_(So this is – uh. I’m. Damn._

_Honestly, up until this point, I didn’t know what I wanted to say. And I think it’s in part because I didn’t ever think I’d be here. Back then, I thought I’d head off to Kerberos for one last hurrah as a pilot, then come home and… figure things out. But of all the things that have happened, everything fantastic and horrifying and in between, I never did imagine I’d get to be here. With this, us. You._

_Keith – you have been incredible. You are. In everything, in all the ways you’ve come from the kid I bailed out of juvie once upon a time. Sometimes I look at you and it hits me again just how much you’ve given me since that day, and I – I don’t know how I can ever repay that. I don’t think I can ever really say how much you’ve saved me._

_But most of the time – always, really, when I look at you, I see home. Love. Someone who has stood beside me all this time. Something that I hold more dear than anything in the universe._

_If everything after this is an epilogue to all that we’ve gone through, then I want nothing more than to have that with you._

_I’ve loved you a long time coming, I know. And I will love you a long time still. For the rest of our days. Forever.)_

  

There is no public announcement, no declaration of news. The rings are worn on chains, hidden under their uniforms. Their celebrations are quiet and private, once with their friends, and again with just themselves. They go about their work and come home to each other.

Shiro is, and Keith is, and they are. However this ends, now, it will end with them together. And for them, it’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Come find me on social media – I'm on Twitter as [@redluxite](https://twitter.com/redluxite) and Tumblr as [redluxite](https://redluxite.tumblr.com) ^__^ I yell a lot about AUs, HCs, and WIPs. You can check there too for ways to support my writing!!


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